The scene before him gradually stabilized, and the golden palaces and spires of the dream city once again appeared in front of Gawain.
As he looked at the Eternal Sleepers’ "avatars" coming and going, and the city quietly operating, Gawain couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief.
It seed that the disguises he set up in the network were functioning well, and the backdoors he planted for infiltration weren’t detected by the Eternal Sleepers.
But after all, who knew what antivirus software was before computer viruses erged?
This wasn’t the first or second ti he had infiltrated this world—it was the third, and his actions in this ntal network were now well-defined.
Steal technology, plant backdoors, monitor the actions of the Eternal Sleepers, and if possible, exert so influence over them through this ntal network—to guide this peculiar evil cult in line with his expectations.
Gawain bypassed the crowd, reaching the area where the Node Crystal was located. After connecting to the main channel, he first confird that everything in his "experintal field" was normal, then quietly exited the hidden connection and began to search for potential technical information with the aid of the Node Crystal.
Although previous attempts had failed to yield effective information, Gawain didn’t co away empty-handed. Through analyzing and learning the knowledge he absorbed from the Eternal Sleepers and the experience gained from resource theft in the ntal network, he had vaguely grasped the principles and structure of this network. He discovered he could do more with the network’s breach than he initially imagined.
This network was directly connected to each Eternal Sleeper’s ntal world, which ant theoretically it could link to each one’s thoughts and mory space. Of course, the Eternal Sleepers were aware of the risk, so they protected and isolated their conscious worlds when connecting to the network to prevent reverse intrusion. However, from Gawain’s perspective, their defenses were clearly insufficient.
Perhaps it was because the Eternal Sleepers never imagined that soone would harm their church brethren on this ’ho’ network, or perhaps Gawain’s own soul mutation was too severe, giving him an exceptionally strong control over his subconscious world. To him, all the deceptive, covert shielding asures in this ntal network seed to not exist at all...
The Node Crystal emitted a faint glow, floating silently in front of Gawain. He gazed at the surface of the crystal, while his magical power gradually spread out. He could sense the hidden truths beneath the crystal’s deceptive exterior—a vast amount of data was being exchanged, distributed, and reconstructed here, with the thoughts of countless Eternal Sleepers surging and fluctuating at the bottom of the data sea. So thoughts were strong, others weak. Those strong thoughts were tightly connected to the network’s entire structure, with any slight disturbance risking triggering a network-wide alert. However, those weak thoughts...
They floated like seaweed and plankton among the waves, lacking both protection and vigilance.
These were the lower-tier Eternal Sleepers, the most basic group of evil cult followers. Their greatest value in this network was to contribute computing power and to act as a "buffer" to bear data pressure when the network experienced severe fluctuations. For this immature network, fluctuations were a common occurrence, and the Eternal Sleepers chose the simplest and crudest thod to ensure overall network stability.
Gawain cautiously let his magical power continue to diffuse, mapping out those thoughts’ patterns through the Node Crystal’s transition, and roughly judging the potential strength of their owners. He also started trying to read the surface mories of those thoughts—this was one of the Eternal Sleepers’ most basic abilities. Although Gawain had acquired this knowledge through absorption, it was his first ti actually putting it to use.
He had to be extrely careful—if his infiltration into the network got exposed, who knows what extre reactions those already tense evil cult followers, anxious about "Wanderers from Outer Realm," might have? They might just unplug all the servers in a panic...
A vague vision erged in Gawain’s mind, and he saw countless light dots flickering and flowing within the hazy outline of the dream city. Most light dots were on the city’s outer layer, with fewer in the inner layers and several exceptionally bright ones gathering in the large palace area at the city center.
He cautiously avoided those targets that were too powerful or too close to the central area, and began to engage with those that seed suitable for his intervention.
He observed a few fleeting surface mories—so were of unfamiliar crowds holding gatherings, others of the mundane life in gloomy, desolate ancient fortresses. Among these rapidly flashing surface mories, he suddenly saw a particularly special scene.
An elderly Mage living in seclusion, a deviant man who had veered off the path, soone tempted and fallen by the Eternal Sleepers, willingly becoming a slave to dreams...
He slowly approached...
In the mountains of the southwestern frontier of the Typhon Empire, an ancient Mage tower stood silently atop a craggy peak. The dim twilight shrouded the black roof of the ancient spire, cascading down its mottled exterior walls, outlining a hazy golden edge around the tower’s body. This light, however, could not dispel the tower’s persistent gloomy aura, instead rendering it as if it were mysteriously torn from the sky.
The villagers living at the mountain’s base always harbored fear for the Mage tower atop the mountain. They knew a terrifying Mage resided in the black tower. Every night, the silhouette of this fearso Mage would appear through the highest window of the tower. The ignorant villagers regarded the mountain’s strange winds, lightning, and fog as signs of the Mage’s anger, cautioning their children to stay away from the peak to avoid being enchanted by the Mage, turning into statues in the tower, or one of those tad, talking owls. Such was the villagers’ imagination of Magic.
In fact, their fear was not unfounded, for a terrible, ntally unstable old Mage did indeed reside in that black tower. It was rumored that the old Mage ca from the Imperial Capital Oldennan and was banished here by the emperor for researching forbidden knowledge. He lived in isolation, with a peculiar temperant, never communicating with the villagers. He had several equally gloomy apprentices, who would occasionally descend to buy food or conduct other trades. The villagers often detected a bloody sll from these black-robed apprentices, thus fueling more unsettling and horrific rumors about the black tower.
The black-haired, slender Mary carried the procured food away from the village amid the villagers’ fearful eyes. Their uneasy, absurd speculations seed to still swirl around her ears as she tightened her black Mage robe around herself, using the hood to shield against the chilly mountain night air while walking alone on the mountain path.
There was only one road leading from the mountain village to the Mage tower, though the impulse to flee it was countless. Mary raised her head to look at the Mage tower door already in sight, and then couldn’t help but glance back at the road from which she ca.
She touched the tal collar around her neck, reluctantly withdrawing her gaze, and step by step approached the Mage tower.
The Mage tower’s door opened automatically, and the dark doorway made her instinctively step back. The next second, however, a withered arm reached out from the darkness, pulling her into the door.
A hoarse, aged voice ca from the side: "Don’t dawdle, the master won’t be pleased."
Mary nodded, quickly handing the basket she carried to the servant who was as gloomy and ancient as the entire Mage tower. Then she walked heavily to the second floor of the Mage tower.
The old Mage, robed in black, sat within the magic laboratory. The walls and floor around him were drawn with bizarre, blood-red magic symbols, flickering with dimly shifting light. As Mary entered, the old Mage slowly lifted his head.
His sparse, white-haired head looked withered, as if air-dried, his wrinkled skin marked by the passage of ti. He seed so aged he could die any mont, but Mary knew this old Mage was far from dying—she even suspected he would live forever, outlasting her own life.
"You’re back... get to work," the old Mage stated, casting a muddy glance at Mary. His voice, deep and slow, bore a peculiar lethargy, which Mary knew stemd from his being in a special "connection" state, a term she didn’t fully understand since her ntor never allowed her to access such knowledge. All she knew was that this "Spell" differed entirely from traditional Magic. Her ntor, Daniel, had discovered this "Spell" at the height of his madness, then beca obsessed with it, provoking the mages of the imperial capital and thus ending up in this desolate frontier...
Whenever in the "connection" state, the old Mage’s reactions would slow to this degree. Yet, the lethargy was rely an illusion—his mind remained sharp, and his reactions could be quite swift. The wisest choice was imdiate compliance with his orders to avoid punishnt.
Mary showed compliance, quickly walking to the corner of the laboratory where a dissected specin was already set upon the table, maintained in an optimal research state through magic. Mary recognized it as a monkey, a common creature in the mountains.
She began processing the specin according to her ntor’s prior instructions. Despite its slight twitching, she chanically set to work—peeling flesh, connecting nerve lines, imrsing it in magical oils...
Yet, halfway through these chanical motions, she suddenly heard a strange noise from her ntor’s direction.
Stunned, she looked up to see her ntor’s eyes wide open, imnse terror rapidly overtaking his aged, withered face. As if faced with an unspeakable entity that could frighten him to death, this typically fear-inducing old man opened his mouth to emit an odd exhalation. After stiffening for two seconds, the old Mage abruptly extended his arm, seemingly trying to block sothing in front of him, but uttered an inexplicable phrase:
"Stand there, I’ve already caught you."
That wasn’t how her ntor usually spoke.
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